Aimez-vous Brahms... Reading Order

Aimez-vous Brahms... (Do You Like Brahms?, 1959) by Françoise Sagan is the fourth novel and generally considered the most emotionally mature of the early works: it follows Paule, a thirty-nine-year-old interior decorator in Paris who has a long-established relationship with Roger, a man who loves her but also sleeps with other women and makes no effort to conceal it. When Simon, a twenty-five-year-old man who is the son of a client, falls seriously in love with her, Paule must decide whether to exchange the comfortable, painful familiarity of her relationship with Roger for the intensity and uncertainty of Simon's love — knowing that she does not love Simon with the force that he loves her, but also knowing that Roger will never give her the exclusive attachment she half-wants. The novel is Sagan's most careful study of the geometry of desire: not the first passion of Bonjour Tristesse or the clean sadness of Un certain sourire, but the more complex territory of middle age, where people's histories complicate their choices and where love is no longer a simple sensation but a negotiation among competing needs and accommodations. The title comes from a scene in the novel in which Simon sends Paule a note asking whether she likes Brahms — she does, he obtains tickets, and the evening is the beginning of their affair.